ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the emergence of English-language teaching (ELT) and second-language teacher education (SLTE) in South America, with a special focus on the Chilean context. To do this it explores how a group of final-stage pre-service teachers learnt to teach EFL in a teacher-education programme in Santiago, Chile. This book outlines the current challenges of ELT and some common issues with Argentina and Brazil. It examines in different chapters, in the last 25 years, Chile has embraced public discourse aiming to become a 'bilingual' country. The book will be of special interest to researchers using Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) in different educational contexts in the world. CHAT is a theory of human development, which sees culture as crucial in learning and development. This theory is founded on seminal work of Vygotsky and later developments of Leont'ev and Engestrom.
